Longitudinal Development of Receptive Vocabulary in Children with Cerebral Palsy and Anarthria: Use of the MacArthur-Bates CDI

ABSTRACT

Objective

To examine receptive language growth in children with cerebral palsy (CP) and anarthria using a parent-reported measure of vocabulary.

Method

Scores from 47 children (29 males) with CP and anarthria were obtained from the vocabulary checklists on the MacArthur-Bates Communication Development Inventories (MCDI) and analyzed to examine the distribution of receptive language growth. Linear trajectories of word composite scores were created using a linear-mixed model, incorporating between two and ten data points per child.

Results

Three different growth trajectories emerged: approximately 23% grew by 100 or more words per year, 13% grew by 50–100 words per year, and 64% grew by 50 words per year or less. Age-four vocabulary was strongly correlated with rate of increase in vocabulary.

Conclusion

Receptive vocabulary scores from the MCDI are increasing at a reduced pace for most children with CP and anarthria. More sensitive measures of language assessment are necessary to gain a complete picture of their language ability levels.

KEYWORDS:

• Cerebral palsy
• anarthria
• receptive language
• longitudinal design
• intellectual disability

Acknowledgments

We thank the children who participated in this research and their parents who completed the parent-report measures, as well as the graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Wisconsin – Madison who assisted with data collection and reduction.

Declaration of Interest

The authors have no financial relationships relevant to this article to disclose. The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by grant [R01DC009411] awarded to Katherine C. Hustad from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, National Institutes of Health. Support was also provided by a core grant to the Waisman Centre, [U54 HD090256], from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.